International Business Times reports that in January alone Getty filed five lawsuits for the unauthorized use of single images.
While Getty has been aggressively pursuing infringers with “settlement demand letters” for some time, lawsuits are unusual because the monies involved usually don’t justify the expense of going to court.
Once Getty identifies an unauthorized use their normal practice has been to contact the user, make then aware of the copyright violation and the normal fee they would have charged if they had been contacted before the use and try to negotiate a settlement.
Unfortunately, a great number of user consider such requests “extortion” and a “scam.” These people believe they should be allowed to make free use of anything they find on the Internet. A large number of websites, blog posts and message boards have sprung up that offer advice on how to respond to such letters and avoid payment.
In a typical thread found on Reddit one writer suggested, “They don’t actually want to go to court. They just want you to get scared and send them money.” To this one writer responded, “Yea, that was pretty much what drove my decision making process. The amount of money they were asking for was far less than the amount of money it would cost Getty to take me to court so I figured I would call their bluff.”
In a statement provided to IBTimes by a Getty spokeswoman, the company admitted that the recent lawsuits were filed, in part, to “send the message that we will take legal action when someone uses our content and is not willing to pay a license fee.”
One of the major sites where infringers can get advice is
Extortion Letter Info (ELI), founded by Matthew Chan. In an email to IBTimes, Chan said “They are using the court system as a collection mechanism with little intent on actually going forward,” he said. “Many judges have gotten wise to these trolling operations of using the court system as a tool to force out-of-court settlements. If Getty continues to do this, I believe they eventually will be ‘discovered’ and called out.”
(A Copyright Troll is a person or organization that purchases copyrights for the sole purpose of making money through litigation, not the normal licensing of the copyrighted material it owns or represents. Clearly, this is not what Getty is doing.
For information about Trolling check out this story on Patent Trolls or go to Wikipedia.)
Getty disagreed with Chan and said it has resorted to litigation only after repeated attempts to reach fair settlements. “We have no economic incentive to use the court process in place of a business process,” the company said. “The parties in these cases have refused to pay the appropriate licensing fees for the use of creative content that does not belong to them.”
Getty says the amounts it seeks from alleged infringers are based on its actual license fees, plus a portion of its enforcement costs -- a financial hardship it doesn’t believe it should shoulder. “We do not believe it is reasonable that, upon being identified as having used an image without a license, an image user should only be accountable for the cost of licensing that image alone,” the company said. “If that were the case, there would be little incentive to license images properly in the first place, and we would be doing a disservice to our existing paying customers, and to our contributors who rely on the correct licensing of their images as a source of income.”
Getty Images, says its recent lawsuits are evidence that is working to protect intellectual-property rights and “the creative process of artists and photographers” around the world. “It’s a shame that anyone who does this these days is labeled a troll,” the company said.